Posts from ‘Paintings’
Art in Embassies; A Duo of Show Openings
A message from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton:
“To create more friends and fewer enemies, we can’t just win wars. We must find common ground and common purpose with other peoples and nations so that together we can overcome hatred, violence, lawlessness, and despair….By investing in [our] common humanity we advance our common security because we pave the way for a more peaceful, prosperous world. Through its temporary exhibitions and permanent collections, ART in Embassies intrigues, educates and connects—playing an ambassadorial role as important as that served by traditional diplomacy. Connecting people to people through the visual arts advances freedom of expression and invites an exchange of ideas.”
In neighboring Sublette County, the town of Pinedale has big plans for 2012. According to a recent edition of the Sublette Examiner, “Main Street Pinedale”—a group of Pinedale citizens working to promote its downtown by “capitalizing on its uniqueness and by using historic preservation to generate economic and entrepreneurial growth”— will host a series of conferences that will work to raise Sublette’s cultural profile.
Events surrounding the conferences include “CLICK! A Weekend for Wyoming Visual Artists.” The Sublette Examiner writes:
“The name “CLICK!” suggests that thing that happens when you reconnect with colleagues and get inspired by new ideas, which occurs continually when Wyoming artists congregate,” said Sue Sommers, a local artist who helped organize the event, and is hoping to expand on the visibility and interconnectedness of Wyoming’s art community with those near and far – something she also tackled recently with the Pipeline Art Project….Like Pipeline, CLICK! is working alongside the Wyoming Arts Council (WAC) [sharing] a database of Wyoming artists and helps plan and partially fund the project.”
CLICK! takes place March 30 – April 1, 2012 at the Sublette County Libray, Pinedale. More registration info will be available soon. To read the Examiner’s full article, “click” here.
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In case you live in a cave–and the only peeps I know doin’ that are Bears 399 & 610–you know wildlife painter Amy Ringholz is Jackson’s 2012 Fall Arts Festival (FAF) poster artist. At 34, Ringholz is the youngest FAF artist to date.
Her winning painting, “Dreamers Don’t Sleep,” a 72 x 60″ ink and oil on canvas, will be showcased in the National Museum of Wildlife Art’s lobby January 22 – March 23, 2012. A wonderous portrait of the region’s wildlife, its magnificent Teton Range, a sparkling night sky, the painting also includes 25 painted flowers, to in honor of NMWA’s 25th anniversary. The painting is set to be unveiled at the museum Sunday, January 22, at 3:00 pm
Inspired by Fritz Scholder and Egon Schiele, Ringholz is a contemporary painter—the first contemporary FAF artist in over a decade. As this year’s Festival artist, she joins some of the West’s most notable working artists: Russell Chatham, Bill Schenck, Donna Howell-Sickles and 2011′s Dwayne Harty.
Locally, Ringholz is represented by Altamira Fine Art. Her work has been exhibited at NMWA, the Rockwell Museum of Western Art and Desert Caballeros Museum. She’s been featured in Southwest Art, Western Art & Architecture, and Western Art Collector magazines.
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Altamira Fine Art also represents 2009′s Fall Arts Festival poster artist R. Tom Gilleon. Altamira has confirmed that prices for Gilleon’s works will “increase significantly” as of May 1, 2012.
Gilleon has a major museum exhibition January 28 – May 27, 2012, at the Booth Western Art Museum. He is planning a one man show at Altamira in July. For more information, contact Altamira at 307.739.4700. www.altamiraart.com
Sometimes it all boils down to the boat.
Now on exhibition at the Tayloe Piggott Gallery, artist Kathryn Lynch’s River Tugs is an opus to the painter’s surroundings, and her naive, folk-like painting style is refreshing. It’s cool to have these paintings of tugboats and other vessels in Jackson, because they’re subject matter not often offered up in our mountain town. Lynch leaves out nautical details and concentrates on each boat’s essence—for her, these tugs are “symbols of the ongoing solitary traveler in each of us.” The theme is one we’ve picked up on in the most recent Piggott gallery shows, and these works encourage us to give pause—and that’s a good thing. No rushing. Lynch’s tonal, broad strokes, rendered in grays, greens, orange and blues, suggest play even as they suggest a certain somber observation of our collective psyche.
As children, pushing our Fisher Price tugboats around and around in the bath made the prospect of approaching bedtime much more welcome. Splashing play, followed by a dive under the blankets and dream time.
Showing concurrently at Tayloe Piggott is Nicole Charbonnet’s body of new works, Wild Things. Charbonnet’s layered, fresco-like works “serve as a metaphor for the phenomenon of recollection,” and portray animals found in the wild and iconic wild West horses and cowboy themes. Charbonnet also explores our own perceptions of self through non-human imagery; her work expresses a longing—and also a reverence—for days gone by.
She sees in her process of “erasing” the paint and overlaying additional layers something that both celebrates and criticizes the values portrayed by her subjects. “I’m raising questions about their current viability in a changed world. I make them look old and tired, though still beautiful, to ask if it’s time to relegate them to memory.”
A New Orleans native, Charbonnet says her home city greatly influences her work. “If you watch New Orleans, you see everywhere the effects of the process of time on surfaces,” she says. adding “That’s true of every place, every person.” The artist builds up her paintings with layers of textures, images, words, fabrics and collaged papers from all manner of sources. Says Charbonnet,“Nothing is ever completely gone, so even if you don’t hold a conscious memory of something, it forms the fabric and texture of who you are. I try to re-create the process your mind goes through in becoming what it is. You see something, and it reminds you of something else, another context, another feeling, even while the original image remains.”
River Tugs and Wild Things remain on exhbition through February 7, 2012. www.tayloepiggottgallery.com
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Trailside Galleries annual Holiday Miniatures Show opens with a gallery reception on Thursday, December 29, 5-8:00 pm. The gallery is excited to début “exquisite” new miniature paintings from most of the gallery’s roster of
artists. The gallery will feature new works by such noted Western artists as Kyle Sims, Dan Smith, Adam Smith, Joseph Sulkowski, Guy Coheleach, Robert Duncan, Nicholas Coleman, David Mayer, and many others.
The show’s opening takes place in conjunction with that evening’s downtown Jackson Holiday ArtWalk. While you are there, venture upstairs to see what’s new at the Jackson Hole Art Auction offices; Trailside produces the annual Fall Arts Festival event in conjunction with the Gerald Peters Gallery. For more information, phone 307-733-3186. www.trailsidegalleries.com …
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Thursday, December 22, wildlife artist Mary Roberson gives an artist’s demonstration at Altamira Fine Art, 3-5:00 pm. An artist’s conversation, “My Sketch Book,” will be presented by Roberson at 6:00 pm.
Altamira takes its name from Spain’s famous Upper Paleolithic cave paintings of wild beasts. Of all Altamira’s artists, Roberson is most connected to that wild spirit, and inner knowledge that animals inform us.
Jenny Dowd sends the following information on classes and updates over at the Art Association:
Figure Drawing Class meets between Christmas and New Year’s, on December 28th. If you bring some tasty holiday goodies, class will be that much more festive!
The Art Association’s winter/spring class schedule will be available soon; be sure to check the website often for updates. Dowd is excited about classes coming in the New Year—she lists such offerings as Sketchbook & Journaling for Beginners; a new class devoted to trying out oil paints, acrylics, and learn about brushes, surfaces, mediums and color charts; study of human and animal anatomy with Dwayne Harty; Tammy Callens will teach a portrait workshop; Meredith Campbell will teach botanicals. And, there will be day-long printmaking workshops!
Who Am I? Portraits of Our Community remains on display at the Center for the Arts until January 2, 2012. The show includes work by several Portrait Drawing Class student artists. Check it out! www.artassociation.org
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Check out the National Museum of Wildlife Art’s Tumblr Blog post for December 20th, and read a little bit about one of the Museum’s most powerful works: Ron Kingswood’s large-scale oil painting “Thou Shall Not Reap the Corners
of Thy Field.” Its title “reminds tillers of the fields to leave “a sheaf” behind, so that those less fortunate may be nourished. Here, Kingswood is thinking of wildlife’s winter challenges.” Blue magic.
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“A sure sign that art enthusiasts are still looking to invest in quality works of art, we are pleased to report that the 2011 Jackson Hole Art Auction resulted in a record breaking sale in its fifth year,” says Auction Coordinator Lucy Grogan.
“The auction held on Saturday, September 15, 2011, realized $9.5 million in sales with over 90% of the 250 lots offered selling well into and above their estimates.”
The auction is currently accepting consignments for next year’s auction, to be held Saturday, September 15,2012. To learn more about consigning to the J.H. Art Auction (an auction of past and present Masters of the American West), phone 866-549-9278, or visit www.jacksonholeartauction.com. Everyone is also welcome to stop by the auction office, upstairs in Trailside Galleries at 130 East Broadway in Jackson.
Trio Fine Art’s next group exhibition, Flight, opens at the gallery on Thursday, December 8, 2011. An opening reception takes place 5-8:00 pm, and a percentage of all sales benefit the Teton Raptor Center, and Center director Roger Smith promises to bring along a raptor resident.
It’s the Trio artists’ affinity for birds that inspired the show. Trio’s four artists —Jennifer L. Hoffman, Lee Carlman Riddell, Kathryn Mapes Turner and September Vhay—all have lofty aspirations and feelings for good things that take wing.
“My love of birds,” says Riddell, “came from my parents. Dad planted the flowers that attracted the birds to our yard, and Mom taught me to recognize the bird’s songs.
Recently a Calliope hummingbird nested outside my studio window and I was able to draw and paint the mother and two chicks.” It was a formative experience for Riddell. She adds that she and her husband Ed Riddell made contributions towards helping to rehabilitate injured raptors; the money paid for lots of frozen mice. The Raptor Center is one of Jackson’s great treasures, says Lee Riddell.
